


Vetr / Zima

by yumekuimono



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Author is in hell with these two, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Bucky Barnes Recovering, But only a little, Canon Divergence - Post-Avengers (2012), Civil War Elements, Deaf Clint Barton, Feels, Fluff, Good Consent, Harm to Animals, Hurt/Comfort, Hydra, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, JARVIS is a good bro, Knife fighting, Loki Needs a Hug, Loki Redemption, Lokitty, M/M, MY BABIES, Mad Science, Magic, Mind Control, Mind Control Aftermath & Recovery, Not Captain America: The Winter Soldier Compliant, Odin's A+ Parenting, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Rare Pair, Sexual Content, Shapeshifter Loki, Unethical Experimentation, Winter Soldier Bucky Barnes, WinterFrost - Freeform, compliant with nothing really post-avengers, look more tags, wow that was a lot of tags
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-24
Updated: 2016-10-24
Packaged: 2018-08-24 11:39:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 18,001
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8370904
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yumekuimono/pseuds/yumekuimono
Summary: For his crimes, Loki has been sentenced to exile in Midgard, under the watchful eye of his brother and the Avengers. James has recently been rescued from the clutches of HYDRA, though he wishes people would stop calling him Bucky. They're both on the outside, looking in.





	

**Author's Note:**

> First time publishing anything with more-than-implied sex. Please be nice to me, I don't know what I'm doing.
> 
> Vetr (Old Norse) and zima (Russian) both mean winter. I basically Google Translated all the Russian, so if something doesn't make sense or is weird, please do let me know.
> 
> Also sorry-not-sorry Steve, but maybe you deserved this after Civil War.

“I suppose you are also avoiding your blond guardian?”

James startled, whipping around from the sliding glass door to face the other occupant of the common floor balcony. Automatically, he slid towards the corner where he could see both the door and his opponent, body relaxing into a ready stance that was wary without being overly aggressive. He cataloged critical details: simple clothes that were a little too light for the weather, no visible weapons, naturally balanced stance, open posture, about his own height, average weight, lithe build, but strong. There was an air about the man that spoke of power, though James couldn’t identify it and it put him on edge, not being able to assess his threat level. Then further recognition clicked in and he amended his assessment to include Asgardian and thus stronger, faster, and heavier than he looked, probably more so than James, and able to use magic, though his knowledge of that was dangerously unspecific.

“Peace,” Loki sighed. “I do not mean harm to you.”

James straightened slightly, but did not otherwise move. Loki tilted his head, regarding him.

“You are the one called Bucky, are you not? I do not believe we have met.”

James felt the slight frown pulling at his face and reminded himself that he would not be punished for the emotion. He let it stay. “Steve calls me that.”

“And what do you call yourself?”

James blinked. _The Asset_ was on the tip of his tongue. _Soldat_. Instead he said, “James.” The name had more resonance to it than the nickname Steve had for him, an echo across the line between the life that was lost and his life now.

“Well met, James. I am Loki.”

“Steve said you tried to take over the world.” His frown deepened. “With aliens.”

Loki sighed again, slightly put upon. “The Captain has only partial information. I did invade, but I never intended to succeed. Neither the army nor my mind was entirely my own at the time. Unfortunately, first impressions do tend to linger, and I suppose I had somewhat of a reputation to precede me.”

Unbidden, James wondered what would have happened if he’d been active when Steve had found him, if he’d have been so quick to take James in. The Black Widow had survived him once, and she certainly didn’t trust him. “Your mind was taken?”

Loki glanced out at the darkened city for a moment. “Yes, in part. By a creature rather more powerful than myself, though in my defense I had recently suffered a rather long fall and was not near my full capabilities.”

James had a brief, indistinct sensation of wind whipping past and the ground rushing up towards him, typical of things from before. His earliest actual memories were factual, divorced from himself, but he remembered pain, and missing a left arm made of flesh, remembered the first times they’d put him in the chair, remembered struggling, though he couldn’t remember why. “I know about that.”

“Do you?”

James nodded. “Steve says I used to know him, was his second in command before I got captured by HYDRA. He thinks if I spend enough time away from them I’ll remember.”

“Human procedures to alter the mind are rather blunt.” Loki’s tone made it clear what he thought of the likelihood of that happening.

“Steve also thinks that interacting with large groups of people is a good idea on days when all I do is look for a target,” he agreed. “He doesn’t realize I’m a loaded gun.”

Loki smirked humorlessly. “I suppose I should tell you that in this you are outdone. Part of the reasoning behind my sentence being carried out on Midgard was that it was prophesied that I might bring about Ragnarok, the destruction of the Realms, and it was feared that any imprisonment on Asgard capable of holding me would only further my madness and hasten the end of all things.”

James shifted to put his back to the railing, deliberately displaying a greater relaxation. Keeping Loki in the edge of his sight, he watched the various Avengers as they moved through the common lounge, entertaining themselves singly or in pairs, unaware of the two in the dark. After a moment filled only by the faint sounds of traffic and the wind, he asked, “Does anyone else know?”

“No. I doubt even Thor knows of this part of my sentencing. Do you believe me?”

James glanced sidelong at him, took in Loki’s carefully crafted expression of detached interest, considered. “Steve said you’re called the god of lies.”

“I am also the god of mischief, and of chaos.”

“You already knew how I got here. And none of the others would have believed anything you’ve said.”

Loki made no answer.

James thought about the images Steve had shown him in lieu of an introduction, explaining why he wasn’t going to search out and possibly disturb the sorcerer, and warning him about Loki’s use of mind control. From what he had seen, though, Loki needed the scepter to take another’s mind, like HYDRA needed the chair, and that was held by SHIELD. He remembered the expression that underlay all others on Loki’s face in them, the one that mirrored his own on those missions he’d been given a longer leash. Those were the ones for which they’d been extra thorough in their conditioning beforehand, making sure that their Asset would remain functional for an extended period and would return. Only Loki had been given too long of a lead too soon and had managed to contrive his own escape.

“All liars need to be believed,” he said finally. “Even when they tell the truth.”

Loki let out a quiet laugh, turning to lean his forearms on the railing, looking out over the evening traffic. “A lesson whose importance I am relearning, of late.”

“None of the others would _understand_ , either.”

There was something a little relieved, a little depreciatingly humorous in Loki’s voice when he agreed, “No.”

They stood in companionable silence for some time, until Steve could be seen through the glass asking after Bucky. James sighed.

“I don’t know why he doesn’t ask JARVIS.”

Loki glanced at him with a wry smirk. “If he did ask Stark’s spirit, this balcony would no longer be quite so private.”

“That is true. I won’t suggest it.”

“Perhaps we shall see each other again.”

James turned from where he’d sidled up to the door, waiting for Steve to look in another direction before slipping into the room. “I would like that.”

+

He stepped perfunctorily onto the balcony, stopped with his back to the closed door. He felt uncomfortably detached from his own body. Loki glanced up, then turned fully to face him, frowning.

“James? Are you well?”

“ _Ya trebuyu misii_.”

The god took a step closer. “A mission?” Flicking a glance over his shoulder, Loki took in the Avengers gathering in the common lounge around six large boxes of pizza. “The Captain told you to come to this floor because there was food, yes?”

“ _Da_.”          

Loki nodded, considering. “You must consume enough food to sustain yourself, then. Avoid whichever box Barton has chosen for himself, but otherwise you may pick whichever is most convenient. Sit to the right of Captain Rogers, placing a single person between you. Answer in English any questions put to you. Return here when you are done, but do not be seen.”

“ _Ya budu otvechat’_.”

He followed the orders he’d been given. They were easy to do, uncomplicated. By the time he stepped back outside, James felt more settled, his mind less distant. He came to the railing, putting his back to it as he had previously. Loki watched him sidelong, head barely turned.

“Are you well?”

“Yes.” James let out a long breath through his nose, pushing his hair back from his face with one hand. “Steve is a stubborn idiot.”

Loki went back to watching the cars on the street below. “Well-meaning but ignorant and unobservant fools are ones I know well.”

They stood in silence for a while.

Steve would have told James that he didn’t have a mission, would never have a mission again. Something like that would have only confused him, made it worse. It was true what he’d said. No one else would have understood. James found that he was…pleased, to know that Loki would be his handler. If he needed it. He turned the feeling over for a few moments, before it occurred to him that there were words that went with it.

“Thank you.”

+

They met up on the balcony several more times, James sneaking out to find Loki already leaning on the railing, and they’d watched the constellations of city lights together. The god was almost never in the common room when James came in, always outside already, and so it wasn’t until a post-battle team dinner weeks after their first meeting that James saw what drove Loki out into the night.

The team, plus James, was eating Thai food directly out of the containers and beginning to talk among themselves when Thor turned and quietly remarked, “Father must surely be proud of your actions today, brother.”

“I am not your brother, Thor,” Loki snapped. “Nor will Odin ever be _proud_ of me.”

It was apparently an old argument because the others gave the two Asgardians no more than a glance before going back to their own conversations. No one else saw the way Loki’s face closed in on itself as soon as Thor turned away in hurt. When he gathered himself and then stood and walked out, no one so much as noticed the movement though he made no visible attempt to hide himself. For reasons he couldn’t explain, James was certain he’d only seen because he’d been watching directly. Taking advantage of the moment, he left his own food and followed Loki onto the balcony.

“You don’t come out here because you like it.”

Loki, who had been trying to school his expression into something neutral when he’d seen James, let it slide back into unhappiness. “No.”

Coming to face Loki at the railing, James waited. The light from inside cast the sorcerer’s face half in deep shadow. He sighed, a faint cloud that caught traces of orange light. James’ own breath was a dense stream in the biting late fall air, the only indication that the cold affected either of them.

“The realm of Jotunheim is one of ice and snow,” Loki began quietly. “The Jotnar have an elemental connection to it, and they can inflict frostbite with a touch. A thousand years ago they fought a war with Asgard, and they lost. The last thing that Odin took from their realm, along with their greatest source of power, was an infant he claimed was abandoned, intending to use it to broker peace between the realms. Instead he raised me to think I was Aesir, and the Jotnar no more than savage monsters. I did not find out until I discovered that not only do I have a higher tolerance for the cold than others, the touch of a Jotun does not burn my skin black but rather reveals its true color.” His voice fell to a whisper. “All my life I tried so hard to be considered Thor’s equal, to show that I too was worthy of a throne I thought within my reach. Little did I know that not even that base esteem was ever to be accorded me by the man I thought my father, and all because of a lie I was never supposed to learn the truth of.”

Loki’s face had crumpled as he spoke, the shadows across it sharp and angular. Tension drew his shoulders up and curled his fingers into his palms. James regarded him levelly, forced his mouth to form words.

“HYDRA took my memories from me, and they took my mind. They wanted to make me into a weapon, and if I performed my function well, they wouldn’t hurt me. Sometimes they did anyway, because I was a weapon and not a person, so they could. They stored me in a freezer when I wasn’t needed. Being put back meant dying temporarily, but I started to want the cold because the ice meant I was safe.”

He reached out, bridging the divide between them, taking hold of Loki’s arm in a gesture meant to ground, and comfort. Instead the sorcerer startled, eyes jumping up to meet James’, as he tried not to lean into his touch. He wasn’t entirely successful, and again James made an observation about the god that wasn’t a question.

“They don’t touch you either.”

“No.” Loki’s hand came up to clasp James’ arm in return, still staring.

“Steve did. I got violent. Before that, it was just pain.”

Loki nodded once. “Thor has given up as well.” There was silence for a moment. “I am a god.” The words were tired, without a trace of arrogance or boastfulness. “Mere months should not matter to me, and yet…they were almost enough to break me.”

James returned the nod, thumb sweeping once over Loki’s skin, waiting. He watched, and was watched in return.

Finally Loki said in a strangely even tone, “I have always known what I _wanted_.”

“I know,” James agreed. “I want.”

Loki’s other hand came up then, tangling in James’ hair and pulling their mouths together. Their bodies slid together, fit together desperately, suddenly needing as much as possible. James’ mouth remembered how to kiss, how to respond, and some small part of him was shocked that his body remembered how to do anything, touch anyone in a way that was not meant for hurting. The rest of him was starving and drunk and drowning all at once and didn’t care where it came from so long as there was more. He felt a tug everywhere at once and then James only had time to register _unfamiliar living space_ before Loki pulled him down onto his lap, sliding his hands up under his shirt and touching skin to skin. Mouths moved to necks and jaws and ears and back to each other, sucking on lips and tongues, and then Loki’s fingers pressed over a nipple and James’ hips jerked forwards and they pulled apart with a startled gasp.

They stared at each other a bit, eyes too wide and breathing too harsh until James finally asked hoarsely, “Too much?” and almost in the same moment Loki said, “Yes.”

James slid off of Loki’s lap then, onto the couch, but they kept the contact, kept kissing, finding other ways to entwine themselves in each other, too starving for it to stop. When finally they did, James’ hand splayed against Loki’s ribs and Loki’s fingers tracing patterns into his back, James pulled his face from where it was tucked into Loki’s neck to look at him.

“What is this.” It was a question, but nearly devoid of inflection.

Loki sighed and let his head fall back against the couch, fingers going still. “I do not know.”

James nodded, accepting that. “Are we going to do it again?”

The small smile that played around the god’s mouth was genuine, and whatever it would have taken to control it wasn’t worth the effort. “I would like that.”

They lingered, until JARVIS announced, “Mr. Barnes, Captain Rogers is looking for you.”

James pulled a face. “I should go. He won’t stop until he finds me.”

Loki walked with him to the door and then down the hall to the elevator, their shoulders brushing. Now that he was looking, James realized that Loki had taken them to what must be his own quarters, sharing a floor below the Avengers’ with another, empty, apartment. It was sparse in a way that was elegantly understated and made the rooms feel bigger than they were, with wood flooring and pale walls. It felt modern in design, with a largely open plan, but the dark furnishings had a classical timelessness. It was subdued, but somehow it fit the god of chaos, as if Loki himself was enough to fill the space. James was stuck in an extra room on Steve’s floor.

“Can I come down here sometimes?”

They were stood in front of the elevator, waiting for the doors to open, though neither of them had pushed the button. Loki reached up to trace one of the rapidly fading marks he’d left, and then kissed James’ mouth again. “I would like that, too.”

+

Loki’s apartment became a refuge. They still met up on the balcony, trading acknowledgement from the edges of rooms whenever they were dragged into a group activity and then discreetly slipping out after each other when they wouldn’t be noticed. Increasingly though, Loki would take them to his apartment, or they would head there directly. Hesitantly at first, and then with more frequency, James started spending his free time with Loki, going down to his floor when Steve was away. They spent hours getting lost in each other’s body, in the intoxication of being able to touch without hurting, or being hurt, though it was never any more sexual than the first time, at least when they were together. Loki’s skin was always cool to the touch, and James found he enjoyed it, would happily plaster himself against Loki’s bare chest or back. After some initial reticence, Loki was more than willing to let him. In return, he never minded James’ arm, never looked at it with pity the way others did, as if it wasn’t a part of him.

Sometimes, though, it was enough just to be together, to talk or not as they wanted, knowing the other would understand. James started bringing his books or his tablet down to sit with Loki as he did his own reading or researched a spell. They grew comfortable leaning against each other, with arms casually around shoulders or waists. Eventually, Loki took James to his front door, placing his hand on the knob and covering it with his own, glowing green and engulfing them both.

“It will open for you now whenever you wish.”

James kissed him for that.

He was in the apartment one day, reading curled up on the couch, when Loki appeared in a fury. He stormed over, manhandling James partially with magic until he was back to chest with the god and Loki could put his forehead on James’ shoulder and stick freezing hands under his shirt. He startled a little at the cold, but quickly relaxed, going back to his book. It was nice, actually, the security leeching into him from Loki’s fingers a comforting counterpoint to the bleak nihilism in the story before him. He read through another ten pages before Loki finally spoke, muffled slightly by his shoulder but still clearly fuming and hurt.

“I have lived a thousand years in Thor’s shadow. A thousand years as his brother only when it was convenient, and now he is the one hurt when I reject him. He cannot even recognize my illusions for what they are because he cannot tell they lack substance, that is how little attention he has paid to me, and he believes I should _owe him anything?”_ Loki snorted. “Three days of exile was much too short for a fool such as him. I suppose it is my luck that any additional time he receives should be tethered to mine.”

“I thought Thor wasn’t banished.”

Loki sighed. “Not officially, no. However, as my appointed guardian, it amounts to the same thing, except that he will return from being a protector of Midgard while I will return from disgrace and forced reparation. A reparation Odin would not have considered had there not been…other circumstances of a mitigating nature.”

James hummed in commiseration, turning the page he’d forgotten to when Loki spoke.

The god sighed again and set his chin on James’ shoulder. “I do not wish to speak further of this. Tell me what you are reading.”

“ _Bésy_.” James showed him the cover, with its picture of a man with a wild expression, hands clutched in his long hair. “Dostoyevsky was apparently a hundred years before I got to Russia, but it feels much the same. Although it wasn’t like I was involved with exactly _normal_ people.”

“Hm.” Loki shifted against him, relaxing a little, and James turned back to where he’d left off. Loki read along with him, unbothered by the Cyrillic writing, hands gradually warming back up against James’ skin.

James paused as he considered something. “Why do you know Russian? Or English, actually?”

“Allspeak. It is given to citizens of Asgard, allowing us to understand all tongues and to be understood in return. To my own ears I could be speaking the language of Asgard, which I believe heavily influenced Midgardian Old Norse, and you would not be able to tell, although I do actually speak English. Unlike most, I have learned to control my use of Allspeak, as being automatically understood in the native language of whomever I am speaking to is not always useful given my penchant for deception.”

James blinked as he processed that. Loki always seemed to know which language to speak to him in, and never cared when he only communicated in Russian. Steve would get this pained look on his face and try to get him to speak English despite the fact that some days he simply couldn’t. He’d taken to spending those days locked in his room, before this thing with Loki, even though they tended to be the worst of his days. It was unsettling to know that he was so much the creation of HYDRA and the Red Room then that Russian counted as his native tongue. It had helped, though, to have Loki speak to him without barrier or judgement for his language, and recently those days had been less.

“Well, I’m glad you have it.”

Loki turned his head enough to press his lips briefly to the side of James’ neck, finally relaxing behind him in full as they went back to the book.

+

The day had started out bad and hadn’t gotten any better. James had woken from nightmares hours before the dawn and known that he wouldn’t be getting back to sleep. It wasn’t like he really needed it, but being forced awake by the screams in his head made him groggy and irritated. He’d stood at the windows watching the city wake up until Steve walked in, dressed to go for a run, and said, “Oh, _Buck,_ ” in that horribly concerned voice of his that made James want to snarl. As it was he’d scowled and stalked back into his room, shutting the door harder than necessary.

Steve had hovered outside for so long that JARVIS had inquired as to whether he still intended to go for a run, as it would soon be rush hour and the route to Central Park would be crowded. Steve had dithered, and JARVIS had suggested in his tactful way that perhaps Steve would have better luck if he came back later. James, in turn, had been glaring daggers at the door as if he could make Steve go away by sheer force of will, and when Steve started to protest, he’d finally grabbed an actual dagger and hurled it into the wood of the door. It was long enough that he knew the point would stick out the other side. Steve left after that.

He’d waited until he knew Steve was out of the building before pulling his knife out of the door and going to the kitchen for breakfast. He was back in his room by the time Steve came back from his run, the door closed and the window open as far as it would go, a towel on the floor to absorb the snow that drifted in. It didn’t stop the thoughts, memories of things he’d done and things HYDRA had done to him, sneaking in around the edges no matter how hard he tried to think of something else. He avoided Steve, prolonging the inevitable, and sure enough, he knocked on the door just before dinner time.

“Bucky, can we talk?”

James didn’t respond, didn’t move, though his eyes stopped absorbing the words of the book he’d been trying to read.

Behind the door Steve sighed. “You know you’re not supposed to have weapons in your room.”

He let the silence stretch, hoping Steve got the hint. Of course he didn’t.

“You’ve been in there all day. Buck, please—”

James yanked open the door just enough to fit his body, face absolutely blank. He knew Steve hated it. “Don’t call me that.”

“It’s your _name_.”

James just stared him down. He knew Steve hated that, too.

Steve floundered for a bit, then finally asked, “Just…come to movie night with the team. Please. Get out of your room, at least _see_ some people.”

“Fine.” He shut the door again. Closed the window. Put away his book. He waited until Steve was downstairs at the team dinner that inevitably preceded movie nights before making his own dinner and asking JARVIS if Loki would be there.

“Mr. Friggason has reluctantly indicated that he would attend.”

“Thanks.”

He did actually want to see people that weren’t dead now, by his hand or otherwise. He hated himself, hated feeling miserable and violated, and when he allowed himself to feel it, he did really want not to be alone. He just didn’t want to be with Steve, who would tell him it wasn’t his fault and then try to shove him back into a skin that didn’t fit. It was so much easier to be angry at Steve than angry at things he couldn’t do anything about.

He slipped into the common lounge behind everyone else and sat himself in the overlarge black armchair in the corner to the left of the door. None of the team were amateur enough to freeze or stare at him, but they did keep sneaking glances at him as they bickered over which movie to watch and where to put the popcorn bowl so everyone could reach. James kept his face blank and ignored them and the part of himself that was uncomfortable out of his usual seat both. In a building housing multiple assassins and a sorcerer, everyone knew not to get in someone’s space once it had been claimed, and James wondered if anyone would dare point out that he was currently occupying Loki’s spot. No one did.

When Loki came in at exactly the start of the movie, he just sighed and sat in his chair anyway. He was half on top of James, legs flung primly across his knees and sitting back against his chest in such a way that James was forced to put an arm around his waist. Anyone else would have been uncomfortable, either physically or mentally, but this had in fact been James’ objective when he’d sat down. He let his mouth brush against the back of Loki’s neck as he shifted enough to see over the god’s shoulder. They watched the movie like that, casually in each other’s space and studiously pretending not to notice it or the increasingly long looks the others were giving them when they thought neither of them would see.

When they were done watching Indiana Jones run around India trying to rescue some kids and save his bimbo sidekick, Loki pronounced the movie, “Mildly distracting, as usual,” and swept out. James gave it a few minutes before he slipped onto the balcony and dropped over the edge to land two stories down on Loki’s floor. The god was waiting for him as he came out of the roll he’d used to absorb his momentum and drew him into a kiss.

“I am not Bucky,” he said sourly when they parted.

Loki just raised one eyebrow. “Of course not.”

He wrapped an arm around James, led him inside. They sat together on the couch, more comfortable leaning against each other now that they weren’t pretending not to enjoy it. Loki summoned his book to one hand, the fingers of the other entwined with James’ metal ones and resting at his hip.

“Can you summon my book?”

“Summoning requires some familiarity with the particular object one desires.”

“Do you have a copy of _Catch-22_?”

“I do not.”

James sighed and let his head rest against Loki’s shoulder. It was quiet, the silence stretching into minutes around the turning of pages. Loki’s apartment always felt calm, the space around them still in a way that Steve’s floor never was even when it was empty. James liked it, liked that Loki wouldn’t care that he’d once been ordered to kill four children as slowly as possible, that he’d been ordered to make their father watch, that later, he’d been severely punished for killing the father quickly when they had crossed paths in the bunker afterwards. He liked that in this space the thoughts could come with clarity, yet could find no purchase, no way to cling to his mind and so they passed away. For the first time since waking, he felt himself relax, just a little.

“Steve wants me to be his friend.”

Loki put his book down, but didn’t say anything else, waiting for whatever else James felt like saying. That was another thing, or really a facet of the same thing. Loki knew how to be patient when it mattered, how to exist in silence without needing to break it.

“I’m not,” he said shortly. He let out a breath towards the ceiling. “They put chemicals and electricity in my brain, and they made me forget. Even without the PTSD and the seventy years of being used as a weapon, whatever Steve’s expecting, it’s not _there_ anymore.” And then because it was still strange to articulate thoughts like these out loud, he had to follow it with something petty, something small. “He keeps calling me Bucky.” Only it wasn’t, really.

Loki hummed in commiseration. “The Captain wants you to develop your sense of agency, yes?”

“I have agency. I just use it to avoid him.”

“Perhaps if you avoided him further away from his own floor?”

James shifted around enough to look at Loki, who let him see an expression of sly conspiracy. It looked good on him, so James kissed him and said, “No one’s living in the apartment across the hall, right?” He didn’t really need to ask because they both understood what was meant, but it was a game. For James, words were often a game played reluctantly, a necessity for people who didn’t understand, but Loki liked the game, was good at it, and James liked that he was.

“It is indeed empty.”

James kissed him again before settling back against Loki. After a while he said, “Thanks. For doing this for me.”

There was a long moment of silence in which he felt Loki’s breaths suddenly become measured underneath him. When he glanced back the god smiled at him. “You are welcome, James.”

+

Steve found him several days later packing his things into boxes, trying to get his books to stack flat without leaving any extraneous space. He frowned at James, taking up most of the doorway.

“Buck—”

“I told you not to call me that.”

“What else am I supposed to call you?”

“James. Like everyone else.”

“You never went by James. Only one who ever called you that was your ma and then only when we were in for a scolding.”

James finally looked up from his stacks of books, glaring flatly at Steve and not dignifying that with a response.

Steve finally shifted and changed the subject. “What are you doing?”

“Packing. Moving.”

The frown deepened. “You know one of the conditions of being released by SHIELD was living in the Tower.”

James rolled his eyes. “I don’t have to live with you. There’s an extra apartment downstairs. JARVIS gave me permission.” JARVIS had probably asked Stark, but it wasn’t like James ever talked to the engineer himself, and it’d been JARVIS who’d told him where to find the boxes.

“Are you sure—”

James stood, cutting him off. “You can’t keep me here.”

“No, but—”

“I don’t remember being _asked_ if I wanted this room.”

Steve’s face crumpled a little. James didn’t care; he was still looking at him like Bucky was hiding somewhere and would only be revealed if Steve was persistent enough. “Were you going to tell me before you moved out?”

“Yes.” He refused to give him any more than that.

Steve nodded, visibly shoved down on his hurt a little. “Do you need any help?”

“No.”

“Bucky…”

James took the two steps to stand in front of him. “I’m not your friend, Steve. I might look like him, but I’m not. Bucky’s dead. I don’t want to talk to you until you can at least remember my name.”

Shocked, Steve let him brush past to retrieve his things from the bathroom. He didn’t see Steve for the rest of the day as he finished packing his things and taking them down to Loki’s floor, JARVIS holding the elevator for him and walking him through the set up for the electronic lock on his door. He went across the hall to find Loki for that, and found him looking mildly frustrated. The sorcerer sighed and flicked his hands when he saw James, threads of spellwork running off his fingers in ethereal green flames that consumed themselves in midair.

“I am not certain whether this spell is failing due to a fault of my own or the terms of my exile.”

James raised his eyebrows, wrapping an arm around Loki. “What are you trying to do?”

Loki looped his own arm across James’ back. “Attempting to set up a channel between here and Asgard such that I might freely summon and replace several things. I had long ago established one between my chambers and myself, but I find myself missing taking my favorite mare out to ride. However, in addition to my physical presence, much of my magic and my facility at moving through the astral plane has been bound to the locality of this realm, and the spell itself is complicated by the fact that I cannot be in Asgard to anchor the other end, nor have I ever tried to cast it thus. I may have to enlist Thor’s help,” he admitted. “Not that that doesn’t have its own set of problems.”

James hummed. “I yelled at Steve today. Told him I don’t want to talk to him until he can remember my name.”

“Good,” Loki murmured. They’d reached James’ door, and he glanced through at the boxes stacked just past the entryway. “I suppose this is the conclusion of that conversation?”

“Yeah. JARVIS is setting up my lock. I want you to have access too.”

Loki blinked at him. “Oh. Thank you, James.”

He shrugged. “You let me in.”

So Loki’s thumbprint was also scanned into the reader, and then he helped James to move in, mostly by rearranging the living room furniture such that the seating would get the most sun from the large windows while still being defensible, and then rifling through the contents of the kitchen. He didn’t touch, move, or even suggest a place for any of James’ things, letting him have complete control and freedom of choice. Instead he sat on the sofa while James stashed emergency weapons in strategic places, waiting until he’d hidden the last one before pulling him down and occupying him elsewise, mostly with his mouth.

They went about the rest of their day more or less as normal after that, Loki disappearing to work further on his magic, and James making sure Steve was not in the gym before wandering down. He felt freer, Loki’s apartment no longer a temporary escape he would have to leave eventually to close himself into his one room of safety. Nor had he realized how much of an impostor he had felt like living on Steve’s floor, crawling underneath the ghost of who his body used to be. This was better. At least it was until the nighttime, and then he couldn’t seem to relax. He kept his rooms cool, but it wasn’t enough. Smaller spaces were safer spaces, and his weapons were scattered too far apart. He couldn’t seem to keep his eyes closed, and when he did finally manage to sleep, he dreamed of an examination room, repeating his name so they couldn’t take his mind.

He startled awake and was on his feet before he was fully aware of what he was doing, checking the corners of the room and sweeping restlessly through the rest of the apartment. He stood in the middle of the living area, the space yawning around him, yellow and orange lights taunting him from the other side of the window. Before he could think too much about it, he padded across the corridor and into Loki’s apartment. The god met him at the short hallway that led away from the living and kitchen space. His hair was rumpled and he was wearing only a pair of loose linen trousers.

“James?”

He leaned into Loki and was immediately folded into his arms. “Whole apartment’s making me twitchy,” he mumbled into the god’s shoulder. Realizing he’d started in Russian, he switched to English. “Can I sleep with you?”

“Yes, of course.”

Loki led him back down the hall into his bedroom, letting James crawl into bed and curl up against him, pulling him close. Loki’s rooms weren’t any smaller than his, and they didn’t have any of his weapons, but they had a presence to them. Loki lived in this space, rather than perfunctorily occupying it, and the weight that gave to the room bled the tension out of his body once he let it. For the first time since he could remember, he could feel the deepening rhythms of another person beside him, an arm heavy over his side. The last thought to cross his waking mind was that somehow Loki had become safe.

+

They quickly began to treat the two apartments as a single floor, crossing freely between them, save for the bedrooms, which remained largely separate. They got used to each other living in their space, though Loki managed to startle James when he came back from the gym to the sight of the god seated on his floor looking rather content. The pool of weak morning sunlight hadn’t quite made it up the couch yet, so Loki had his back against its foot, legs folded and his face tilted towards the windows, eyes closed. Once he’d recovered, James couldn’t help but smile, and he dumped his gym bag to one side of the door on his way to sit on the couch next to Loki.

“ _Kotyenok_ ,” he teased, brushing his fingers though Loki’s hair behind his ear.

The god twisted to look up at him, smiling wide and mischievous, and suddenly James had a lap full of sleek black cat. It put its front paws up on his chest, rubbing its head against James’ jaw before sitting back and giving off the distinct impression of laughing at him. He blinked down at the large housecat occupying his legs, dumbfounded, and then he too began to laugh. He scratched Loki under his jaw, and Loki immediately leaned into it, rumbling happily and narrowing eyes that had remained the same deep shade of green. He sprawled elegantly across James’ lap, demanding more head scratches every time James thought about stopping, and purring continuously. James had forgotten what it was like to just sit and pet an animal, so he indulged Loki as the sunlight slid higher up the couch. Eventually Loki shifted back and James found himself with a lap full of smirking Norse god instead.

“Didn’t know you could do that.”

“Well, it hardly does for all of my talents to be known. In any case,” Loki slid his hands up James’ shoulders, “I had forgotten quite how nice that feels, but I want to kiss you now.”

James laughed, and indulged Loki in this too.

Sometime later, after Loki had growled playfully in response to James nipping at his throat, he asked against his skin, “Would you rather be a _tigryenok_ , then? Or _drakonchik,_ maybe?”

Loki snorted, pushing him lengthwise on the couch and twisting to follow. “I doubt a real dragon has ever been seen on Midgard. Mortals come up with the strangest ideas.”

“Can’t really argue.”

James tugged him down, and then stopped, suddenly breathless. The sunlight was in Loki’s hair, shining through the strands James’ fingers had pulled down around his face, and it slanted across his eyes, turning them bright and clear. His mouth was rosy, and there were several small marks down his neck. The pale skin of his torso was crossed by silvered scars, and James saw the way he leaned into his touch, moved with the hands on his body, and in that moment James wanted. He leaned back up to kiss his desire into Loki’s mouth, right hand stroking down his side to rest at his hip, and when his thumb slipped underneath Loki’s waistband he pulled back, a question in his eyes.

Loki had a breathless sort of smile on his face when he relinquished James’ mouth. He moved his own hand over James’ clothed hip, the heel of his palm pressing just barely too far away, making James suck in a breath and lift into the touch. “Yes,” Loki told him, and then, when James took the permission to drag the god’s pants farther down his hips and slide his palm flat against the exposed skin, “Darling.”

James went back to kissing him, losing finesse as Loki worked his pants open and pushed them out of the way. Both of their kisses became intermittent as their hands pulled panting breaths and low moans out of each other, though they lingered close. That was how they got each other off, this first time, slowly and sun-flushed, two points of contact on each other’s skin and little enough distance that they could feel the heat of all the rest.

After, when they were clean and mostly decent again, still languid and heavy with pleasure, they lay together, Loki’s head pillowed on one hand over James’ chest and James’ flesh arm across his back. Their other arms hung off the side of the couch, fingers linked loosely near the floor. The sunlight still streamed over the both of them, washing over Loki’s shoulders and the sides of their faces through their eyelids.

“Know what I’m calling you now,” James murmured, tracing the Cyrillic letters into Loki’s back. “You’re my _luchik_.”

Loki huffed a little, but the sound was undeniably pleased, and he squeezed James’ hand in his. They didn’t move from the couch for a long while.

+

James wandered into Loki’s apartment one afternoon to find the god seated at a table cleaning and sharpening his daggers. They’d both been out on several missions, James moving out from Steve’s floor apparently sufficient evidence to finally deem him field worthy, so the blades could use it. James went and collected his own knives from his apartment and pulled up a chair. He’d only been cleared for missions recently, but Loki had apparently more or less demanded to fight from the beginning, claiming it a better alternative to boredom for himself and the Avengers both. James finished quickly, and considered breaking down and cleaning his guns as well, but decided he’d rather watch Loki maintain the spellwork woven into the metal of his blades, his long fingers trailing down the fullers leaving glowing green tracery in their wake. He was absently flipping a knife he’d ruined killing a Doombot that’d gotten too close when Loki looked up from his work to notice him watching.

The god smirked. “Would you like to spar, James?”

He caught his knife and placed it on the table, smiling back. “Yeah. I would.”

Loki picked up one of his own blades, running his fingers from hilt to tip as he spoke, tone casual. “I believe Stark has practice knives, but I find that nothing is quite as good as my own weapons.” He ran his thumb over the edge before offering it across the table hilt-first. James took it, tested the edge, and was surprised to find the knife he’d just watched Loki sharpen felt as dull as if it had never been honed at all. He handed it back with a grin.

“Completely reversible, of course,” Loki said as he took it, placing it to one side of the table and picking out several others. “Choose your blades and I will spell them.”

James considered, and then slid one of the heavier knives he wore at the small of his back, two of his tactical field knives, and a smaller knife designed to be worn in his boot across the table, where they looked grim and utilitarian next to Loki’s more elaborately decorated daggers. “With armor?” he asked.

“Boring,” Loki declared as he set to work dulling the blades.

“First blood?”

“Also boring. And not likely to hinder either of us in a real fight.”

James grinned as he took back his weapons and stood. “I like how you think. No magic, either.”

Loki inclined his head, waving a hand to summon his armor’s harness. While he was buckling that on and returning the rest of his daggers to their proper places, James went back to his own apartment to do the same. He exchanged his jeans for pants with greater mobility, and Loki met him at the door as he was pulling his hair back, taking them down to the gym with a thought.

They stood apart on the sparing mat, assessing each other. James’ gaze swept over the god, noting that he wore his scabbards at his hips and sides and flicking up to his face before settling on his torso and softening his focus to include Loki’s arms and hands in his peripheral. He drew a field knife from its sheath at his thigh, flipping it loosely so the blade pointed behind him, and then he waited. His center of gravity over the balls of his feet, he was balanced and ready to move so that when Loki’s hand flickered and threw a dagger at his left eye he was already lunging forward as he deflected the blade with his metal arm.

Loki met him with a heavier blade in his left hand and the fight quickly became close work, weaving in and out of each other’s guards, grappling and striking with forearms, free hands, and legs in an effort to maneuver the other into a position in which they could effectively utilize the extra few inches of deadly steel their blades afforded them. They circled back across the mat, moving faster than thought, playing out strategy and counterstrategy on a near subconscious level. Loki swept James’ feet out from beneath him, throwing both of them into a roll, and when they came up he had the dagger he’d thrown in his right hand and a feral grin on his face. James felt a smile of his own grow as they came back together and he let his knife play between his hands. He’d kept it fairly limited before, despite the awkwardness of having his opponent’s blade on the same side, knowing that Loki had the speed and the skill to take it from him, but now with both of the god’s hands occupied, he could fight more fluidly and aggressively, and he drove forward.

However, Loki was also more comfortable, now wielding two blades at once, and gradually it became clear that they were fairly evenly matched. The fight shifted between them then, becoming no longer solely about gaining the upper hand but more about learning each other, their style and technique. Their moves became varied and increasingly complicated just to see how the other would respond, though neither lost speed or precision. They spiraled around each other and the mats, neither of them reacting when Clint stepped into the gym only to stop dead. Behind him, Natasha poked him in the side, and he moved to let her see but didn’t venture any farther into the room, speaking as if they could overhear.

“I feel like we should stop them, but I also feel like we’d die if we went over there.”

“They are quite good,” Natasha mused.

“Really? That’s all? You don’t think they might actually be trying to kill each other?”

She shrugged. “Let them have their fun.”

The archer raised his eyebrows, but didn’t look away, caught in morbid fascination.

Eventually, Loki managed to deflect the field knife just out of James’ grasp and he bit out a curse as the god knocked him back, following him down to the mat as he scrambled to draw a second blade. The fight ended abruptly with Loki kneeling over James, longer dagger across the soldier’s throat and the tip of the other resting at the seam where metal joined the flesh of his shoulder, though James’ hand on Loki’s upper arm prevented it from being driven forward, and his own knife lay against the god’s jugular. They paused as stillness settled back into their limbs and the world came to a stop around them. Staring across the narrow divide, they each became aware of their panting breath and the blood rushing in their heads and the sweat making their shirts stick, and then only a beat later of the mad grins that appeared on their faces in tandem. James’ elastic had been lost somewhere among the mats, and even Loki’s hair framed his face in loose strands.

And then time started again and Loki rolled to his feet, sheathing a dagger to pull James up after him. They stood and grinned at each other, catching their breath, and then James picked up his knife from the floor and Loki began removing the spells from the blades to restore their edges. Just as James went to reach for the knife in his boot, frowning as he realized that something felt off, Loki pulled the blade from the empty air and offered it to him with a smirk. James blinked once at it before snatching it out of the god’s palm and resheathing it. He shoved Loki’s shoulder playfully. By the door, Clint’s mind boggled when his hand wasn’t immediately snapped off.

“I said no magic.”                                   

“I would hardly be a god of mischief if I didn’t bend the rules.”

James snorted. The knife had gone missing when they’d teleported. “Like you really needed to. You would’ve won if your grip had been reversed.”

Loki shrugged, unperturbed. “Alas.” They turned towards the gym showers, falling into step. “Still, you are remarkably skilled to come even with me, given I have centuries of practice.”

“And annoying feints.”

Loki looked highly pleased at that. “Ah, yes. That move isn’t truly meant for daggers, but it’s unexpected enough for my purposes.”

“Unexpected and damn hard to counter,” James grumbled. “What’s it really meant for?”

“Longsword. I may as well have gotten some benefit out of Thor’s incessant talking at me when we were younger.”

As they continued talking over the finer points of knife technique, Clint turned to Natasha. “Did you know they had more emotions than sullen and irritated, respectively?”

She just flicked him in the forehead, hard, moving past him to the mats. Clint muttered an “ow,” and then froze as Loki glanced right at him with a knowing smirk before disappearing through the door to the showers. Suppressing a shiver, Clint went to go start his own sparring match with Natasha.

Free of their audience, James pulled Loki into the shower stall with him, and the god went readily. Standing under the spray together they were still in each other’s space, but moving with and around the other’s body in a completely different way. Now touch was wanted, and welcome, and they could let down the guards that had gone up like shards of glass. Now it was natural that when they both were clean again their lips would find each other, mutual affirmation that what they’d just done, while violent, didn’t change anything between them. They were still safe, still wanted.

They were still leaning into each other when Loki pushed James’ damp hair back behind his ear, then trailed his fingers down his face and chest, murmuring, “I would have you, now.”

Their eyes met and held and James’ hand brushed along Loki’s hip as he reached past to turn the water off. “Yeah.”

Loki took them to his bedroom, drying them as they went, pressing hips and mouths together. James responded beautifully against him, and Loki slid a foot in between his, pressing them closer and then deftly tripping James back onto the bed. He grumbled a bit as he moved up  the sheets, but Loki appeased him with kisses along his jaw and down his neck, nipping at his collarbone as he moved to taste the seam at James’ shoulder between metal and flesh. James’ hands skimmed his ribs on their way to push their hips more firmly together and Loki obliged him, the two of them rocking together. There was no doubt about where they were going, but they didn’t rush it, enjoying this beginning for what it was.

Finally, Loki stopped them, sliding a hand down to rub circles into James’ hip instead, making him whine. He chuckled a bit at James’ pout, but asked seriously, “Have you done this before?”

“For pleasure, once. I don’t remember it.”

Loki let his forehead rest briefly against his lover’s, pushed away the memories for the feeling of James now. “Do you want to?”

“Yes,” James whispered. “If it’s you, then yes.”

Loki kissed him softly before pulling away to reach for the drawer in the nightstand. He took his time with this, too, rubbing across his entrance and pressing a kiss behind James’ ear, murmuring, “Relax, darling,” into his skin before he started to slide his finger inside. James blinked rapidly up at the ceiling, back arched just slightly and breath unsteady. Loki kissed the side of his face, and when James’ eyes flicked to his, asked, “Would you like a distraction?”

James licked his lips, swallowed. “Please.”

Loki kissed him once more before sliding bodily down, free hand and lips trailing over the expanse of scarred skin, to nuzzle against the hard length resting against his lover’s stomach. Above him, James gasped and a hand found its way into his hair. Loki glanced up to see James gazing down at him and he reached up to link the fingers of their free hands before turning back to his task. He very thoroughly distracted James with his mouth while his fingers slowly stretched him open, brushing over his prostate several times, drawing out shudders and soft noises of pleasure. Eventually, Loki returned up James’ body the way he’d come, letting him lick into his mouth and taste himself there.

“Are you ready?” he asked against James’ lips.

“Yes. Please, yes,” James gasped out, arching down on his fingers, now.

“As you wish.” He replaced his fingers in James’ body, letting out an unsteady breath of his own at the feeling of James around him. He let James pull him down, wrap arms and legs around him, hold him close. He rested his forehead against James’, both of them breathing the same air for a long moment. Somewhere along the line they’d shifted from being carried along by the adrenaline of sparring to something more intimate, closer to the times they spent seeking acceptance and giving it than when they lost themselves to each other’s touch, and the only words Loki could find on his tongue were, “James, darling.”

“Loki. _Luchik, pozhaluysta_.”

“Yes.”

They started moving together; James adapted fast, though as the pleasure built for both of them, his movements tapered off until he stopped altogether with a breath that was more of a sob than a gasp. Loki kissed away the tears that had slipped free, asking, “Too much?”

“ _Nyet…pozhaluysta_.” James had switched over to Russian entirely at this point. “ _Khochu_ …” Helplessly, he turned his head to kiss Loki, and just as helplessly, Loki kissed back, feeling some corresponding thing rise painfully in his chest. They slid over the edge like that, James shaking apart around him and Loki following soon after.

James clung afterwards, hiding his face in Loki’s neck and tangling their legs together so that finally Loki summoned a cloth from the bathroom to clean them with. Truth be told, he loved it, loved that James trusted him enough to need him like this. He didn’t remember the last time he’d been wanted for himself, let alone needed, and that had been before he was broken. He didn’t want to let go, this time.

They lay together for a long while, content in each other and not particularly inclined to mind the passing time. Loki was stroking James’ back absently, tracing runes into the skin, his other hand cradling his head where it still rested against Loki’s shoulder when James spoke, once more in English.

“Loki?”

“Yes?”

“…I liked that.”

Loki kissed his temple, then coaxed him to raise his head and kissed his mouth. “As did I, darling.”

James kissed Loki long and slow for that. Then he sighed. “They will find out eventually.”

Loki hummed in thought, understanding the unasked question. “I care not for your Midgardian terms. You are simply mine.”

James smiled a little at him. “Only if you’re mine.”

“Of course.”

They fell into kissing again after that, affection without the heat of something more, for the moment at least. When they finally left the bed to seek out food, James forewent his soiled sparring pants, now in a careless pile on Loki’s floor, borrowing a pair of the loose trousers Loki favored for sleep and within his own apartment instead. The god slung an arm around his waist at the sight, pulling him back for a moment. He pressed a kiss to the side of James’ neck.

“Mine.”

James twisted, kissing Loki’s mouth and biting at his bottom lip just on the other side of gentle. “Mine,” he said back.

They spent their nights in each other’s beds after that, though not always was it more than sleeping.

+

The team, sans Thor, got called in to deal with a former Oscorp employee gone rogue with a replicator and several types of mutated animals. There was something about spring that brought out the insanity because when the woman apparently lost control of her machine and it started producing dozens of cybernetically enhanced panthers, creatures that seemed to be a cross between a goat and a spider, others that were part siamang and part wasp, and horse-sized ducks of all things, she just stood and cackled. The animals themselves were in a considerable amount of pain from the unnatural shapes their bodies had been forced into, as well as from the replication process itself, and once loose they lashed out at anything that moved. The Avengers were left working to quell the pandemonium on the streets while putting the poor creatures out of their misery and trying to get into the lab to shut down the machine. With this last they had very little success, as more of the mutants were continually pouring out, and they could hardly get close.

“Alright,” Steve finally said, “the front door’s not working. Iron Man, can you get in from the top?”

The red and gold armor streaked in for a moment from the loose perimeter they were trying to maintain, circling the building. “Dunno, Cap. The building’s condemned—she’s basically a mad science squatter—and I’d rather not go through any more floors. Once was enough, thanks. And anyway, mop up’s gonna be even more of a bitch if we lose our perimeter entirely.”

“Guess you’re right. Hawkeye, any sightlines?”

“No can do, Cap. Far as I can tell, thing’s wedged into a corner. No windows on it.”

James shot a panther in the mouth, glanced over at the building in question, assessing. A spider-goat charged him from his left and he holstered his gun to grab it by the horns, flipping it onto its back and shooting it in the throat before it could recover. “I could do it.”

“Soldier?”                              

“If I had intel on the layout, I could shoot through the outside wall. Done it before.” He was already moving back towards the quinjet to retrieve the Degtyarev from the weapons locker.

“Copy that. Iron Man, can you relay the schematics?”

“Not reliable enough verbally,” he said flatly. “Loki.”

The god appeared next to him, stabbing the ape that had gotten in his way and then flicking blood off of the blade. “You called?” He wrapped an arm around James, took them directly to the ‘jet. “I am able to scry and display a visual image of the laboratory,” he confirmed over the coms while James grabbed the rifle and did a quick field check.

“Rooftop to the south,” he told Loki, and was taken there. “Can you show me from above, north at the top?”

Loki nodded, and recited a quick incantation. He flattened his palms together, then opened them, the image spreading in between, then hovering above as he turned his hands upwards. James looked it over, the real time image showing the machine producing animal after animal and the mad scientist standing by as they streamed out the door. The replicator took up most of the southeast portion of the room in a tangle of tanks, machinery, and cables. Most of the rest of the room was full of materials to feed into its processes.

“Try to hit the main power line,” Stark said over the coms. “That’s the best bet to shut it down.”

“What is the wall composition?”

“Uh…looks pretty standard. Brick façade, insulation, plumbing and ductwork, the works. Given that it’s condemned, I’d say it’s likely the woodwork at least would be pretty unstable.”

“Affirmative.” James set up the Degtyarev at the edge of the roof, detaching the scope and keeping one eye on Loki’s display instead to aim. He made the necessary adjustments to account for the wall in between himself and the target, glad that the building was an abandoned commercial space rather than any sort of reinforced laboratory.

“Do this quickly,” Loki muttered, kneeling to his left. “The creatures dislike my scent.”

They were at the back of the target, but several of the creatures had been driven into the alleyways between the buildings by the commotion the Avengers were causing at the front, and the spider-goats and wasp-siamangs in particular were good at climbing. With one last glance at the scrying image and a final adjustment, James focused and fired. In the image above Loki’s palms, part of the wall exploded, followed by the primary power array, and then the replicator went dead. The scientist shrieked, but was prevented from reaching the machine by the mutant creatures still in the lab.

“Replicator’s down,” James reported, packing up the gun, and over the coms there were various expressions of relief.

They were still out for long hours after that, rounding up the remaining creatures and handing the deranged scientist over to SHIELD custody, and then figuring out what to do with the mutated animal remains littered across several city blocks, as well as the technology and raw materials amassed in the makeshift laboratory. After that there was the debrief, in which Fury looked especially irritated that he’d had to spend a day dealing with horse-sized ducks rather than normal human threats like terrorists or drug cartels. When they made it back to the Tower, they were all thoroughly exhausted and the decision was made to order in large quantities of Turkish food and reconvene in the common lounge when it had arrived. As they were all drifting off, Thor returned from a visit to Asgard with an impeccable sense of timing, landing on the balcony in a flash of lightening. Stark just groaned and told JARVIS to amend the food order and fill Thor in while the rest of them went to go feel more human.

Loki was sitting sprawled on the couch in casual clothing when James came in divested of his own armor and hair still damp from the shower. He glanced up when James entered and merely told him, “That was awful and incomprehensible.”

James draped himself on top of his lover in agreement, sighing contentedly as Loki began to run his fingers through his hair. He’d been letting it grow out so that now it reached his shoulders, and Loki gently began to disentangle the knots in it, brushing it back from his face. He snuck the hair band from James’ wrist, tying back a portion before twisting in several small braids just behind his ears, prodding James to turn his head for better access.

“Why,” he grumbled, but moved anyway.

“Many warriors in Asgard wear their hair in this style.”

James glanced up, huffed a breath against Loki’s collarbone. “You don’t.”

Loki made a face. “Sorcery is not considered an honorable means of combat.”

“Sniping would be?”

“No,” Loki smirked, smoothing a hand over the back of James’ head, “but I want to see how long it takes for Thor to notice.”

James huffed again, but any further reply was interrupted by JARVIS announcing the arrival of food on the common floor. He leaned up to kiss Loki before they both hauled themselves up from the couch. It wasn’t so much that they kept their relationship secret from the rest of the team, though any disapproval would certainly stem from the preexisting lack of trust rather than any other prejudice. Rather, it was simply that the lack of trust went both ways and neither of them was comfortable enough with the Avengers to allow that much vulnerability to be seen. So they pulled each other close and then placed a small but considered distance between themselves as they rejoined the group.

They were halfway through their meal, all eight of them sat around the table with plates and passing around boxes of take out since Steve insisted that if they were going to have a table and dishware on the common floor then they should at least get some use, when Thor finally paused and considered James. Head tilted to one side, he gave off the impression of a large but friendly dog.

“Friend James, you bear the mark of a mighty warrior.”

Loki snorted quietly. James just shrugged, dragging a piece of pita through his baba ghanoush. “Loki did them.”

The rest of the table, previously quiet, was now watching them.

“I thought it fitting, given that James ended our battle today.”

“Truly? Well-earned it is then, indeed,” Thor declared. “Come, my friends, will you not regale me with the tales of your endeavors today?”

The focus shifted away from them, then, as Stark began a rant about irresponsible scientific practices giving the whole profession a bad name, and the rest of the team, now more talkative having eaten at least some food, filled in the story around him. No one really thought about the implications of Loki braiding James’ hair, probably assuming it was magic, nor did attention come back to whether or not James qualified as a mighty warrior when the story got to his shot through the wall. Loki shot him an amused glance when nobody was looking, secret mirth lighting his eyes, and James smiled back.

+

They had a few more weeks after that before circumstances forced them into the open. The latest mission had fizzled out, the terrorists Captain America, Iron Man, Hawkeye, and the Winter Soldier were confronting melting away before so much as a shot could be fired. The four fielded members of the team had split to sweep the area before they got too far away, and then James had failed to check in. He’d stopped responding, and Loki, listening in out of boredom and idle proprietary concern, heard the moment when James’ communication device cut out. He stood abruptly, bringing the tracking spell he’d placed on James’ skin some time ago to the forefront of his mind. A further thought brought his armor to him, and then he took himself out of his apartment, letting the spell guide him.

He appeared in an alleyway, his back to the wall. In front of him, James stood flanked by two men in dark uniforms, red skull badges on their shoulders. His rifle was slung across his back and his hands were open. He was preternaturally still, and his gaze when he lifted it was blank, a deep emptiness in his expression. Loki had to fight not to recoil when he met James’ eyes because his mind was _wrong_ , Loki could feel it. He flung out magic when the operatives turned, uncaring of them, and both slumped to the ground.

“James?” He took a step forward, cautious.

James continued to stare at him, made no reply. Unease crawled down Loki’s back. All beings gave off some energy, whether they were magical or not, and Loki’s magic could sense them, generally, as they moved through the world. It was something he’d long noted and folded into the rest of his perception, but from James there was nothing. His body moved but inside there was nothing. He was empty.

James blinked at him, something that might have been the barest confusion flickering there and gone over his face. When he spoke it was in Russian, a dead monotone. “ _Aktiv gotov vypolnit’._ ”

Loki wanted to be sick, wanted to cry. Instead he tapped back in to the Avengers’ communications channel and said, “The Soldier is here. Something is wrong. This takes precedence.” He did not expect to be questioned, nor was he.

He could not stop staring back at James, even as Iron Man landed next to him and hissed out, “HYDRA. Cap, you’re gonna wanna get here.”

The Captain rounded the corner with Hawkeye behind him, and still Loki could not look away.

“What’s up with the goonies?” the archer asked.

“They are unconscious,” he replied absently. “They will not wake until my magic releases them.”

“Oh. Good, they have a habit of swallowing cyanide before we can get to them.” As he spoke, Barton crouched and stuck his hand into the agents’ mouths one after another, pulling out capsules from behind their teeth.

“Buck—James?” the Captain asked, swinging his shield around to his back.

“ _Aktiv gotov vypolnit’._ ”

“What?” Rogers asked, face scrunching up beneath his cowl, at the same time that Stark uttered a quiet, “Fuck,” but it was Loki who translated.

“The Asset is ready to comply.”

The color drained from the Captain’s face then, and he ordered, “Hawkeye, get the ‘jet. Iron Man, do we have anything strong enough to restrain him until we can get to SHIELD?”

“Well, yeah, but I mean, do we have to? Can’t we just give him orders of our own? He said he’s ready to comply.”

“They might have planted their own com on him when they took ours,” Rogers argued. “Or at least a tracking device and I don’t want to deal with conflicting orders if they send more agents after him.”

There was a prickle at the back of Loki’s neck as one of his wards was tripped, and it spurred him into action again. He flung magic above and behind him, then stepped forwards to scan the two agents lying on the ground, interrupting the argument between Rogers and Stark. “They left nothing on James, though both have tracking and communications devices of their own. You will find two more on the rooftop behind us, both unconscious. More are undoubtedly on their way.”

Both men turned to look at him as he knelt, the air around his fingers glowing green as he touched them to the trackers embedded in the agents’ skin, shorting the technology out with his magic. He pulled one of the coms from an agent’s ear and frowned at it, magic engulfing his hand as he closed it in his fist before discarding the now useless device. Before they could ask, he explained, “I’ve disrupted their communications network. None of the devices on that channel will be able to connect to another.”

“Can’t you do your knocking-out thing through the network so we don’t have to sit on our thumbs waiting for these guys to pop up again?”

“No,” Loki said shortly. “Contrary to what you might believe, Stark, there is a limit to magic.”

“Alright, fine. Would’ve been convenient is all.”

The quinjet arrived overhead then, the bay doors opening to drop a ladder.

“Guess I’ll get our guys on the roof,” Iron Man offered, taking off.

Loki turned, only  to be met with James’ eyes once more, still devoid of anything remotely resembling the man he’d shared his heart with, and his stomach clenched. His throat felt too small as he tried to breathe, but then Rogers said, “Get in,” and James’ eyes flickered to the Captain’s before he turned away and grabbed hold of the ladder. Rogers hefted one of the HYDRA agents over his shoulders and began climbing after him. Loki was left to transport himself and the remaining agent onto the jet.

The ride to SHIELD was tense. Loki couldn’t bear to look at James, who sat quietly next to the weapons locker, gaze directed at the floor. Rogers sat in the copilot seat, contacting both SHIELD and the woman Romanoff, telling her to meet them to interrogate the HYDRA prisoners. Stark stood in the middle of the jet’s floor, keeping the weight distribution even after Barton complained that his armor was throwing it off. As it usually seemed to be, it was he who broke the silence.

“Hey, so how come you’re here, Reindeer Games? Didn’t feel like being left out?”

“Is that really important right now, Stark?”

The inventor raised his hands in surrender. “Just trying to put all the pieces together, don’t get your panties in a bunch. Sheez.”

Loki just turned away, staring at the small triangle of sky visible through the cockpit.

As soon as they landed in the SHIELD hangar, a phalanx of agents surrounded James, locking his hands behind his back and bundling a hood over his head before leading him away. Another group carted off the still-unconscious HYDRA operatives. As one, the Avengers followed after them, meeting Romanoff and Thor in the corridor.

Stark, now carrying his armor as a briefcase, quipped, “Well, now it’s a party. Where’s Bruce? He’s missing all the fun.”

Thor frowned at him. “I know not where our friend Bruce may be. I followed the Lady Natasha because I sensed that my—that Loki was here.”

Loki didn’t bother to respond, merely releasing his magic from each captive once they were secured within a holding cell, and the last in one of the rooms used for interrogation. He would have liked to question the man himself, break him down and crack him open until he could take what he wanted, but the Avengers didn’t quite trust him that far. They had good reason not to, but still it rankled Loki to be relegated to the observation room with the rest of the crowd as Romanoff entered to sit across a table from one of the two men he’d indicated as being directly involved with James. He did have to admit she was very skilled, almost on par with himself, and he did trust that she would obtain the information they needed from their captives. James, at least, the Avengers had never had any problems claiming as their own, so far as theory went.

The information, when it began to come, made Loki thoroughly forget his frustration. He listened, and pieced together the implications the operative couldn’t help but let slip despite his efforts to remain closed off. He’d known they had used James. He hadn’t known how thoroughly they had wiped him clean, erased any traces of humanity so they could write him into a weapon for their own purposes instead. When the operative finally gave away the key to their method, if not the specific words, Loki wanted to snarl. They had used James’ past to break him, used the only pain that went deeper than bones to empty his mind and make him theirs. It was probably better that he wasn’t in that room, then; he wanted to _flay_ this man sitting cuffed to the table on the other side of the glass for what he’d done, and such an action would hardly endear him to his current companions.

When Romanoff finally exited the cell and returned to their group, there was a moment of silence as they processed the information revealed and Loki seethed. He watched through the glass as the man was led out, to another holding cell. The quiet in the control room, when it was broken, was thoroughly shattered.

“Okay, so Robocop has a series of words that trigger this homicidal weapon state thing. How do we snap him out of it?”

“Can’t we just hit him over the head, or, I don’t know, recite the words backwards or something?” Barton had his arms crossed over his chest, looking distinctly uncomfortable.

“Given how long they’ve had him, it won’t be that easy. We’d need to know the specific phrases if we were going to even try reverse conditioning him, in any case.”

“Can’t you get it out of our friends in the cells?”

Romanoff looked slightly displeased. “Unlikely. Even getting that much information out of that guy was difficult. And if we leave them too long, all four of them will probably find some creative way to commit suicide.”

“Our goonies must have gotten the words from somewhere, though. HYDRA must have it stashed away.”

“Or, if it’s a trigger phrase, that suggests they had to repeat it. Maybe we just have to wait and it’ll wear off on its own.”

“I don’t like that, Tony. There’s too much risk involved. Even if,” Rogers acknowledged Barton, “we were going after HYDRA at the same time to try to get at the words they used. There has to be something else we can do. Both to get Bucky back now, and to prevent this happening in the future.”

“Like what? We don’t even know the specifics of what we’re dealing with here.”

“I agree with Stark—”

“Wait, wait, say that again, please. You what?”

Romanoff gave the inventor a distinctly unimpressed look. “It’s unlikely that we’d be able to decondition Barnes without knowing the exact method and phrases they used.”

“Alright, so we’ll consider the logistics of going after HYDRA again in the long term. For now, though…”

“We’ve still got the same problem, Capsicle. We don’t know what we’re dealing with.”

Rogers let out a long breath, jaw clenching. A bit helplessly, he said, “He wasn’t like this when we pulled him out of that chair.”

“Are you suggesting we put him back in—”

“No! I just—I don’t know what we should do either, okay—”

“Stop,” Loki interrupted, and they fell quiet in surprise. He glared at them, as poisonously as he could manage. “Do you mean to say that you took James directly from the device used to erase his memory and you did not _think_ to _question_ whether there were further traps within his psyche that may have been used to control him?”

Rogers and Stark glanced at each other. Loki had not been on the mission that retrieved James; though it had taken place several months after he had been sentenced to Midgard, it had concerned traitors and weaknesses within SHIELD. He would not have allowed himself on that mission either, though he had been terribly bored for several weeks.

“It...wasn’t mentioned in any of his files,” Rogers finally said.

“And I suppose you trust HYDRA to keep complete and accurate files in a single location. Or were you so preoccupied with what you found in the files you did have that you did not stop to consider whether there might be additional information, or even to compare the accounts of the _Soldier on duty_ with _the man you had in custody?”_

Loki had not been involved in the arguments between the Avengers’ co-captains concerning James coming to live in the Tower, either, but it would have been hard not to notice those. Rogers and Stark both grimaced and did not look at each other.

“…Loki?”

“What?” he snapped.

Thor didn’t respond, but clear in his confused expression was the question, _Why do you care?_

“Did it not occur to you, Thor, that I would be upset  by such a _blatant invasion_ and _forcible manipulation_ of the mind, or were you not _listening_ when I explained that I was as much Thanos’ victim as Barton and Selvig were mine?”

Loki glared at him through the shocked silence while Thor looked taken aback.

“So…I know people talk about feeling a chill, but did the room just actually get colder?”

The only response in the quiet was the faint sound of ice crackling. Loki glanced down to find his hands covered in a thin layer of frost.

“Oh, _Norns_.” Closing his eyes and focusing on his breath, Loki forced himself to calm somewhat. Twin bursts of green flame dried his hands, though the room did not regain its previous temperature. With some effort, he schooled his expression before opening his eyes to find them all still looking at him. “That said,” he continued evenly, “I have a way to undo the harm that has been done to James, though you will not like it.”

The Avengers exchanged glances.

“What do you have in mind?” Rogers asked.

“I believe SHIELD still has in its possession the scepter given to me by Thanos. The Mind Stone within it—”

“No,” Barton interrupted flatly.

“You at least have an excuse for your failure to listen. I assure you that I wish only to return James’ mind to him.”

“I suppose you’re the only one who can carry out this plan?” Romanoff’s expression was carefully masked.

“Yes. The Mind Stone grants its user powers of telepathy and psychic manipulation of others regardless of preexisting ability. Theoretically, any of you could learn to use it, given enough time and a strong enough will, but I am the only one with sufficient knowledge of the astral plane to be of use at present.”

“Loki, is this wise?” Coming from Thor, in another situation Loki would have found the question amusing.

“The Stone’s connection to Thanos was broken when it passed through the energy field surrounding the Tesseract when Agent Romanoff used the scepter to close the portal. He will not have been able to reestablish a connection, as the only one of the Infinity Stones capable of being accessed remotely is by its very nature the Space Stone. Unless the Tesseract has since been stolen from Heimdall’s possession?” He raised an eyebrow at Thor, who made no response. They both knew very well that no such thing had happened.

“Sure, and when we tell you to put down the glow stick? What then? Even if you do, what’s to say you won’t use it to manipulate the next person to pick it up?”

“I said only that it would be safe for me to handle, Stark, not that I wished to take possession of it. I have absolutely no desire to go anywhere near that Stone again.”

“Yeah? You seemed awfully fond of it last time you had it.”

“Did you never stop to consider that I was playing for you the perfect villain, up to and including my defeat? I _wanted_ to provoke you enough to ensure my failure.” Loki knew Stark to be intelligent enough to have reached those conclusions on his own, but too mistrustful to admit doubts. He pushed that advantage now. “I suppose Thor told you that I fell from the Bifrost? I did not. I let go, fully expecting not to survive my fall into the void. Tell me, what about that and the events prior would lead you to believe I would willingly align myself with a creature such as Thanos?”

None of the Avengers had an answer for that, though Barton remained stubbornly belligerent. Loki’s anger may have cooled enough to allow him a greater semblance of composure, though he had not been able to keep the irritation completely out of his voice, but still he wanted to scream with frustration.

“Why should we trust anything you say, god of lies?”

“I hardly lie all of the time. I do not even lie most of the time, save by omission. Otherwise, how would I convince anyone to believe me when I did?” Loki sighed and dropped the mocking tone. “In this I give you my word as a mage and prince of Asgard: nothing I have said within this room today has been a lie.”

As one, the Avengers looked to Thor, who gaped a bit at Loki before nodding to the rest of his team.

“If you require more reassurance, allow me to use the scepter within one of your cells designed to restrict magic use. I expect SHIELD has at least one that is operational by this point.”

They all looked uncomfortable at his knowing about that particular technology, except for Romanoff, who had kept her masked expression throughout the conversation, which only served to confirm his statement.

“I suppose…we’d have to run it by Fury first.”

“There will be no need for that,” the man himself announced, stepping into the room. For all that he called Loki a diva, he certainly had a penchant for the dramatic entrance. “So long as the scepter remains within the cell and in sight at all times, and you agree to being monitored—”

“And potentially subdued should I appear to do anything vaguely threatening?”

Fury glared at him.

“An Asgardian citizen must always know what they are agreeing to, Director, a liar and a trickster even more so.” There were barbs behind the false innocence in Loki’s tone; this man and his predictable paranoia were not going to stand in his way this time.

“If you must know, then yes, we will not hesitate to neutralize one or both of you at our discretion should we feel that either of you pose a threat.”

Loki shrugged. “I did not expect any less.”

Not one to waste further words, Fury swept out, leaving Loki and the Avengers to follow. Behind him, he could hear Stark talking to his AI, asking JARVIS for a transcript of Loki’s statements within the control room, but he paid it no mind, allowing Fury to lead them further within the confines of SHIELD’s headquarters. He was made to wait while an agent retrieved the scepter and placed it within the cell, and then for James to be transferred between prison blocks. Some small part of him was relieved to note that James’ eyes were uncovered, and his hands were unbound once inside the cell, though the SHIELD agents who handled him seemed just as perturbed at his compliance as the Avengers had been. Only then was Loki allowed access to the cell.

Stepping across the threshold, a shudder worked its way across his back at the sudden oppressive weight on his magic, though it was only one of several unpleasant things about the situation. James’ attention was immediately on him, but Loki only ordered him to sit in the single chair, avoiding his eyes and holding back a grimace when the words came out in Russian. James’ awful non-presence hadn’t gotten any easier to stomach, nor had the feeling of the Mind Stone’s power. Taking a deep breath, Loki forced himself to approach both, lifting the scepter in his right hand and placing the fingers of his left at James’ temple.

“Sleep,” he commanded, lacing the word with power.

Closing his own eyes and drawing from the Stone, Loki slowly made his way into James’ mind, lowering some of his own defenses as he did so in order to soften the impact of his intrusion. Sucking in a breath at how deeply entrenched the twisting of James’ mind was, he carefully began to untangle the path the words created, smoothing out James’ psyche as best he could. Some of the architecture was so bound to the triggers that Loki had no choice but to carefully lock it away, even as he broke open others and cautiously uncompressed their contents into their more usual shapes, filling the void of James’ mind. Behind some locks he found only scorched rubble, and from those Loki turned quickly away. He dared not overstep his bounds in trying to reconstruct those areas, or even to change the existing architecture beyond restoring it to the form it had most recently taken. He did not think he could keep his own self together if he did so in any case.

At last, he retreated to his own mind, taking James’ sleep with him. He cupped James’ face in both hands, heedless of the scepter clattering to the floor, watching as James stirred and hardly daring to breathe. It felt as though he’d been working for hours, exhaustion threatening to settle into his bones, but he could feel James’ presence again and the relief of that held him up.

“James?”

“Loki?” He blinked a few times, frowned. “I…what did you do?”

“I untangled the psychic triggers from your mind. The words cannot hurt you any longer.”

James’ eyes widened and he reached up to grasp Loki’s forearms, tugging him down as he stretched up to kiss him. Loki’s breath shuddered and he caught James’ lips again, and again. He swayed forwards, hands sliding down to James’ shoulders to support himself, forehead resting against his lover’s. He exhaled shakily as James reached up to brush a stray tear from his face. Loki turned slightly into his hand, but let out a quietly mirthless laugh, pulling himself together a little more.

“Unfortunately, they will have seen that, and I need to be outside of this cell to take us back home.”

“Let them,” James murmured. “You’re _luchik moy_. Mine.”

Loki couldn’t help but smile at that. “Yes.” He pushed himself upright again, catching James’ hand in a semblance of helping him stand, though suddenly he could barely stay on his feet. He slid an arm across James’ shoulders, leaning on him, as James tucked his own arm across his waist, smiling at him as he supported Loki’s weight.

When they stepped from the cell they were met with expressions ranging from surprise to outright suspicion. In turn, they leveled parallel scowls at the assembled Avengers, one sullen and one sharp, both defiant.

“I do not suppose it will be taken on trust that the scepter did nothing to effect this in any way.”

James’ arm tightened around him. “Ask JARVIS.”

They all turned to Stark as he raised his eyebrows but pulled out his phone. “J? You been paying attention to this?”

“Indeed, sir. I can confirm that Misters Barnes and Friggason have been engaged in a romantic relationship since before Mr. Barnes moved away from Captain Rogers’ floor.”

“That would explain some things,” Romanoff remarked. She of all of them seemed the least perturbed.

“Well, then if you will excuse us.” Without waiting for a reply, Loki gathered his energy and transported them away from SHIELD headquarters.

He managed to take them both out of their armor and directly to bed, where he proceeded to curl as close to James as possible, pressing his forehead against his neck and holding on as tightly as he could through his fatigue. James tugged a little at Loki’s shirt, and Loki banished both his and James’ to the floor with a muttered word, unwilling to move away. James just gathered him that little bit closer, tucking his nose into Loki’s hair and rubbing his back with one broad palm as Loki’s breath began to hitch wetly. He let his senses flood with James, his warmth, the musk and gunpowder of his scent, his breath through Loki’s hair, the tracking spell on his skin telling him that James was _here_ , but most of all the steady pulse of energy tangible against his magic that told him James was _James_. He let himself feel the exhaustion and the relief and the echoes of his fear, and it overspilled in tears and quiet, unremitting sobs.

“ _Luchik moy_ ,” James whispered. “ _Luchik moy_ , I am safe. I am here, I will always be here, thanks to you. I’m okay, we’re both okay, we’re okay. Loki, _sakharok_ , darling, rest now, I will be here.” He continued on, murmuring comfort in English and Russian, and eventually Loki’s crying did abate enough to allow him to drop into a light sleep.

When he woke it was to James’ metal fingers carding gently through his hair. He sighed, enjoying the sensation for a long moment before he shifted to wipe at his eyes, and then James tilted his head up, kissed him gently. Loki sniffed one last time, brushed James’ hair back with a sad smile.

“I had to lock some of your memories away.”

James nodded. “I don’t care, if it means I can’t ever be used like that again.” He kissed Loki once more. “Thank you.”

He huffed a washed out laugh, kissed James back. “Do not ever do that to me.” Kissed him again, shifting them over to lie fully over James. “Never again, not while you’re mine.” This time James met him in the middle, fingers sliding back into his hair. “They couldn’t _see_.” Behind his tone was, _how could they see, when I am only yours_.

“Never again, because of you,” James murmured. “I am always yours.” He pulled Loki down and kept him there this time, kissed him deep, encouraging every little possessive motion only to echo it right back.

By the time James finally let him go so they could breathe properly, Loki had melted right on top of him, and his head dropped, mouth skimming along James’ jaw. Sensing where he was going, James tilted his head back to bare his throat, letting Loki suck a deep bruise over his jugular. His fingers curled in Loki’s hair, and his other hand slid down  to rest heavy at the small of his back. A small whine escaped when Loki’s breath blew cool across the spot his mouth had occupied.

“Loki…I want.” Words broke off momentarily as the god started leaving a line of little nipping kisses up the tendon of his neck. “Want to be inside of you tonight. Show you how much I love you.”

Loki sat up on his elbows, green eyes wide. “Say that again.”

James ran his fingers through Loki’s hair, brushing it behind his ear. “I love you. _Ya lyublyu tebya,_ Loki, I love you.”

The god let out a shaky laugh, dropping his forehead to rest against James’. “I believe you.” It was a little bit incredulous. “And I love you too.” He tilted his head to kiss James, then had to stop for smiling. Their lips still brushed as he spoke. “I love you, James. And I want very much to know how much you love me.”

James chuckled, and pressed their lips properly together. He rolled them over, sliding his thigh up and bracketing Loki in his arms. “Then let me take care of you.”

Loki smiled up at him, letting his hips roll. “Yes.”

James leaned away for a moment, retrieved the bottle from their nightstand, and then he began to take Loki apart. Slowly, deliberately, he moved down the god’s body with hands and mouth, like stripping and cleaning his KSVK, giving each part  thorough attention and care before moving on to the next, only this was far more important, this was almost worship. James took his lover apart, methodically and patiently and absolutely in love with everything, until Loki was sighing and arching into his touch, hands skimming through his hair and across his shoulders. He slid Loki’s pants off, breath fanning across his hipbone, then worked his own off before returning to pay the same loving attention to this part of Loki as everywhere else. When he slid his fingers inside, Loki’s hands tugged at him and James went, letting him kiss them both breathless and suck the mark on his neck back into a livid purple. Loki’s arms snaked around him, one over his shoulder and the other across his ribs, fingertips digging into his back, and when he pushed inside, Loki’s legs came up too, one almost to his chest, the other hooked high on James’ waist, wordlessly wanting him as deep as possible.

“Loki,” James breathed, mouth near his lover’s ear, body moving in a slow sinuous roll and then stopping, “I love you more than anything.”

Loki’s eyes had gone hazy, a flush growing across his high cheekbones and his breath hitching as his back and hips arched in counterpoint to James’ almost on instinct.

“ _Luchik moy,_ ” another undulation accompanied the endearment, “you saved me.” They both knew he meant more than today. “ _Sakharok,_ I will never leave you,” he promised, body torturously good. “ _Kotyenok_ …”

Loki nearly sobbed. “ _Darling_.”

Finally, James pressed his lips to Loki’s throat, his jaw, behind his ear, moving continuously now, still slow and just as deep. Words fell from Loki’s tongue, welling out of him, and though he was barely conscious of what language they were in, all of them meant _I love you_. When he came, words left him entirely in his gasping cry, flying apart with only James for an anchor. Whatever noises he was left making coalesced back into coherence as he came back down through the aftershocks, fingers smoothing over the marks his nails had left across his lover’s spine.

“James. James, darling, _ástin minn_ , my love, I love you.”

His mouth touched back to the mark on James’ neck, and that was it for him, he was coming undone inside of Loki, vision going white for a moment. He caught his breath against Loki’s shoulder, hips stuttering occasionally, before be managed to untangle them and shift off to the side. Loki grabbed him before he could move away to find a cloth to clean them with, kissing him languid and hot, fingers tangling in his hair once again. After they did finally clean themselves off, they curled back into each other, drifting and content.

Hours or minutes later Loki murmured, “I had thought once that those words from me would never be any more than a lie.”

James lifted his head where it rested on Loki’s shoulder, regarded him. “You saw what they made me, today. Words like that didn’t mean anything. Thank you for teaching me.”

Loki smiled, touched his lover’s face. “There was also a time when I thought I would never hear thanks for my actions. I do not care what anyone else should think. For once, the Norns have smiled upon me, and I am keeping you.”

James leaned in and kissed him, then, and for both of them it was a promise.

+

+

Steve was seated at the bar in the common lounge, toying with a glass of the Asgardian mead Thor had brought back from his last visit. He watched James across the room, quietly teaching Loki to speak Russian without using Allspeak. The two of them had been more open about their relationship after the HYDRA incident, sitting together and exchanging small touches. They weren’t the most affectionate of couples in public, but it was clear they were both happier and more relaxed around each other in ways it was only obvious they hadn’t otherwise been in retrospect. Although perhaps that meant he hadn’t really been looking.

“What distracts you so, my friend?” Thor asked, taking up his own glass of mead after having hidden the bottle behind the bar.

Steve glanced over at him, his smile a little guilty. “Just thinking.” He sipped at his drink. “James is… I can still see Bucky in him. I mean, he looks the same, yeah, but I don’t know, little parts of his personality and his mannerisms sometimes. There’s times he’ll do something or say something and just, the way he does it, it’ll be so familiar I’m sixteen in Brooklyn again waiting for him to call me a punk.” He sighed. “I guess I was holding on to those things, convinced I’d get my best friend back. Thought it was a sign or something, when we found him, that I wouldn’t be alone anymore in this century. But…Loki was in his head. If there was anything left it would’ve shown by now, probably. He really isn’t the same guy I used to know.” He stared a little out into space before he said, “Sorry. I didn’t mean to dump that all on you.”

Thor nodded, also gazing across the room towards the two on the couch. “May I tell you something in confidence?”

“Yeah, sure. Fair is fair.”

Thor frowned. “I have always thought of Loki as my brother, but it is only now that I realize how little I know him. It has been difficult for me to accept that, now that he has stopped pretending in front of me. I find it tempting to blame the change on his fall, or to claim that he has gone mad. However I must also admit that I did hold little regard for his skills in the past because they were unlike mine and I did not understand them, and in doing so I held little regard for Loki himself. I look back on our childhood together and see happiness and companionship. It is only now that I realize that Loki may see something very different.”

Steve huffed a laugh, looking down at the drink in his hands. “With the two of us hanging after them, it’s no wonder they ended up together.”

Thor tilted a smile at him. “That may be so. Loki has always kept his lovers private, which I suppose may again be a fault of mine, but he seems happier with James than I have seen him in a long time.”

“Yeah.” Steve held out his glass. “To learning to see people for who they are, then?”

“Indeed.” Thor touched his own glass carefully to Steve’s.

+

There was a startled yell from the ceiling, followed by a series of hasty bangs, and then Clint walked into their apartment casting perturbed looks back at the cat that came serenely in after him.

“So that’s where you were,” James told it as it jumped up onto the couch next to him, where it promptly became the god of mischief.

Loki leaned over and kissed his lover, his eyes on Clint. “I do not take kindly to archers in my ceiling,” he told Barton as he pulled back.

Clint just threw his hands up, and turned on his heel. “What the everloving fuck is my life. I swear, I’m just a guy with a bow…” His rant continued as he walked out of the apartment.

Three days later, there was a set of food and water bowls in a corner of the common floor kitchen. They were as kitschy as possible, cream colored porcelain dotted with little paw prints, fishes, and stylized cat heads. Loki blinked once at them before carrying on as if they hadn’t been seen, though they disappeared sometime in the night. The next morning, every single light colored article of Clint’s clothing had black fur on it. A scratching post appeared in a corner of the lounge, followed summarily by a picture of Loki’s feline form glued to the inside of Clint’s bow case that was almost impossible to get off. The archer then managed to rappel down the side of the building and slingshot a green collar complete with bell and tags through an open window onto their kitchen counter, and Loki retaliated by leaving a dead pigeon outside his bedroom door. Following that, a small collection of cat toys was added to the shelf holding the various video and board games on the common floor, including wind-up mice, feathers tied to a string, and a fuzzy orange carrot filled with catnip. Loki actually stopped what he was doing when he saw them and promptly disappeared, taking them with him.

Things were suspiciously quiet for about a week after that, until one day Clint was switching out his field ears for his regular hearing aids and suddenly jumped, glancing around. “Did you hear that?”

Beside him, Natasha gave him a strange look. “Hear what?”

He frowned. “Never mind.”

It kept happening, though, whenever he had his ears in and always when he least expected it. The next day he went looking for Loki, finding him on the common floor with James. He narrowed his eyes at the sorcerer. “You did something.”

Loki merely raised his eyebrows in an expression of innocence, and then it happened again, an insistent meowing seemingly just behind him. Clint startled and whirled around, and when he turned back the god was silently laughing at him.

“You will recall that I am the god of mischief. You cannot hope to best me at this.”

“Alright, alright, fine, I give up. You win. Just stop _doing_ that.”

Loki smirked and made a pulling motion with one hand. “Worry not, your aids are undamaged.”

Clint just walked out, muttering once more about the insanity of his life.

The god sighed, leaning his shoulder against James next to him. “Pity. I was looking forward to the visual illusions.”

James just snorted a laugh and slung his arm around his lover’s back.

+

+

Years in the future, when the Iron Man armor has been passed on and a new team of warriors formed under a new name, Loki will wake one morning to realize that the bonds that once confined him to Midgard are gone. He will relish his freedom, and then he will turn over to settle more comfortably against James. A few days later, Thor will announce that he is returning to Asgard on a more permanent basis to better learn to govern her people. Loki will decline to accompany him. Eventually, Captain America’s shield will be passed on as well, and Loki will be the only remaining participant of his invasion of New York. The new owner of Avengers Tower will have inherited them with it.

Only then will Loki turn to James and ask, “Would you like to see the rest of the Realms?”

And James will say, “Yes.”

They will travel to Asgard first, and they will go by the Bifrost, just the once. Frigga will receive them warmly, and privately she will offer, as is the providence of the goddess of marriage, to bind their hands. Happily, they will accept, and in bed that night they will wonder why they had not done so before. Loki will speak with Odin, and they will begin the work of rebuilding bridges, though both will know it to be a task likely never to be finished. Then will the two of them, Loki and James, depart from the Realm Eternal and their feet shall not stop for a very long time, though always they will be walking together.

**Author's Note:**

> Ya trebuyu misii = I require a mission  
> Ya budu otvechat' = I will comply  
> kotyenok = kitten  
> tigrynok = tiger (endearment)  
> drakonchik = dragon (also a real endearment, I'm not making this up)  
> luchik (moy) = (my) light  
> pozhaluysta = please  
> khochu = [I] want  
> Aktiv gotov vypolnit' = The Asset is ready to comply  
> sakharok = sugar (endearment)  
> Ya lyublyu tebya = I love you  
> ástin minn = my love (Old Norse)
> 
> Fun facts if you want to be a minor weaponry nerd with me: The technique Loki has adapted from longsword is a Viking technique called 'slipping' in which the sword is allowed to slide through the hand and is caught by the pommel. For Loki's daggers, since they're lighter than swords and wouldn't have the same power behind the swing, I figured the extra reach and torque would make a suitably unpredictable feint. KSVK is another name for the Degtyarev James uses earlier in the fic. I headcanon that this is what he used in CA:TWS to shoot Fury, which will never not be badass.
> 
> Also check out [my Tumblr](http://yumekuimono.tumblr.com), where you can read my fics in a different format and occasionally listen to me flail about my writing.


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